I just couldn't bear PC anymore and eventually stopped playing. Turns out it's good that the game has like a million annoying and frustrating issues because otherwise I would've never picked up The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt when I saw it on sale. Best impulse buy ever! For $25 I got the Game of the Year edition which includes the main game and 2 massive DLCs.
I usually don't play RPGs, I've played Skyrim but got never even close to finishing it. But it doesn't matter because The Witcher 3 is freaking awesome! It looks awesome, sounds awesome, plays awesome. It's so awesome that in less than a month I've clocked about 60 hours.
It has an open world you're free to explore and everything is so detailed and masterfully designed it's amazing. Beautiful landscapes and thousands of little details bringing the world to life, stunning weather effects and day-night cycle, it feels almost real. You can see the passion that went into every pixel, making even the last corner of the HUGE maps (yes, plural!) unique.
And then there's the story (don't worry, I won't spoiler anything) - from the outside it might seem like just another story in some kind of fantasy-medieval setting: You play Geralt of Rivia, a so-called "witcher" (monster hunter for pay), on the search for his daughter.
But OMG this has to be the best writing in any game ever! Down to the shortest side-quest it's all exceptionally well done. There's constantly surprising turns of events, moving moments, interesting characters you meet, difficult decisions you have to make... You can be sure that even the occasional fetch-quest has some original twist. Among the best stories are the little ones that you will encounter only if you keep your eyes open.
You don't notice this at the beginning, but the decisions you make during quests have consequences on the world around you. There's no obvious right or wrong, but from time to time you'll meet characters from earlier in the game and you might learn that what seemed to be a good decision at the time turned out to be a truly horrible mistake.
The beauty of The Witcher 3 is that it really leaves an impact. Graphics, story and sound (brilliant voice acting!) do such an exceptionally good job to immerse you in this dark fantasy world, that to me it's so much more than just a game - it's an experience.
If you don't like the fights there's an extra easy difficulty setting so you can play the game just for the story (and that alone would be worth your money, I swear). Good thing is, you can change the difficulty anytime. I'd recommend one of the two hardest settings if you want to get the most out of the game. Only then dodging and using signs and alchemy will make a real difference in the fights.
Speaking of fights, in my opinion the combat system is one of the weaker points of the game, mostly because of the super unhelpful camera. Also: The lock-on mechanic felt clunky at first. By now it doesn't bother me anymore though.
There's certainly a learning curve to the two different systems (one for fighting humans, one for fighting monsters) but you have to understand that figuring out which approach is needed in which combat situation is part of the game. The game will point you in the right direction though, there are clues scattered about the world and in the “bestiary”, your in-game monster encyclopedia.
The first part of the game is kind of a tutorial area, I figure this is so new players aren't too overwhelmed in the beginning. It takes a while to get into the game and getting used to its mechanics. "Tutorial" probably doesn't do it justice though. It will take you hours to explore every secret and do all the quests of this first map, I didn't even realize at first that this is just the first map! This part is already good but it's nothing compared to what follows after.
On the technical side there's not many bugs I've encountered so far (again, 60 hours). I had like 5 crashes so far, so saving often is a must. But given the size of this beast I think that's impressive.
Sounds like a perfect game? Not quite, but it's certainly one of the best, if not the best game of its kind.
TL;DR: The Witcher 3 blows my mind and I have PC to thank for!
I usually don't play RPGs, I've played Skyrim but got never even close to finishing it. But it doesn't matter because The Witcher 3 is freaking awesome! It looks awesome, sounds awesome, plays awesome. It's so awesome that in less than a month I've clocked about 60 hours.
It has an open world you're free to explore and everything is so detailed and masterfully designed it's amazing. Beautiful landscapes and thousands of little details bringing the world to life, stunning weather effects and day-night cycle, it feels almost real. You can see the passion that went into every pixel, making even the last corner of the HUGE maps (yes, plural!) unique.
And then there's the story (don't worry, I won't spoiler anything) - from the outside it might seem like just another story in some kind of fantasy-medieval setting: You play Geralt of Rivia, a so-called "witcher" (monster hunter for pay), on the search for his daughter.
But OMG this has to be the best writing in any game ever! Down to the shortest side-quest it's all exceptionally well done. There's constantly surprising turns of events, moving moments, interesting characters you meet, difficult decisions you have to make... You can be sure that even the occasional fetch-quest has some original twist. Among the best stories are the little ones that you will encounter only if you keep your eyes open.
You don't notice this at the beginning, but the decisions you make during quests have consequences on the world around you. There's no obvious right or wrong, but from time to time you'll meet characters from earlier in the game and you might learn that what seemed to be a good decision at the time turned out to be a truly horrible mistake.
The beauty of The Witcher 3 is that it really leaves an impact. Graphics, story and sound (brilliant voice acting!) do such an exceptionally good job to immerse you in this dark fantasy world, that to me it's so much more than just a game - it's an experience.
If you don't like the fights there's an extra easy difficulty setting so you can play the game just for the story (and that alone would be worth your money, I swear). Good thing is, you can change the difficulty anytime. I'd recommend one of the two hardest settings if you want to get the most out of the game. Only then dodging and using signs and alchemy will make a real difference in the fights.
Speaking of fights, in my opinion the combat system is one of the weaker points of the game, mostly because of the super unhelpful camera. Also: The lock-on mechanic felt clunky at first. By now it doesn't bother me anymore though.
There's certainly a learning curve to the two different systems (one for fighting humans, one for fighting monsters) but you have to understand that figuring out which approach is needed in which combat situation is part of the game. The game will point you in the right direction though, there are clues scattered about the world and in the “bestiary”, your in-game monster encyclopedia.
The first part of the game is kind of a tutorial area, I figure this is so new players aren't too overwhelmed in the beginning. It takes a while to get into the game and getting used to its mechanics. "Tutorial" probably doesn't do it justice though. It will take you hours to explore every secret and do all the quests of this first map, I didn't even realize at first that this is just the first map! This part is already good but it's nothing compared to what follows after.
On the technical side there's not many bugs I've encountered so far (again, 60 hours). I had like 5 crashes so far, so saving often is a must. But given the size of this beast I think that's impressive.
Sounds like a perfect game? Not quite, but it's certainly one of the best, if not the best game of its kind.
TL;DR: The Witcher 3 blows my mind and I have PC to thank for!
